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Armed police are to carry out routine patrols in London to combat gun carrying drug gangs.
In an unprecedented move for British policing a team of 18 constables armed with sub-machineguns, led by an inspector and two sergeants, will operate permanently in “hotspots” in Brixton, Haringey and Tottenham.
The officers, from the Met's Specialist Firearm Command SO19, will patrol estates and streets to prevent shootings and stabbings.
The move, which follows a 30 per cent surge in gun crime in London this year, will be the first time in Britain that armed officers have been put on permanent patrol.
The officers — some on motorbikes — will be armed with Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machineguns capable of firing up to 800 rounds per minute and Glock semi-automatic pistols.
The patrols will begin next month after a series of pilot schemes in recent weeks.
Inspector Derek Carroll told Jane's Police Review: “A lot of streets in London have young people in postcode gangs, aged 14 and upwards, and a lot of communities feel that they are controlling areas of estates. We are looking at gangs that have access to firearms and will be robust in dealing with them.”
Mr Carroll said that one of the key aims would be to ease residents' fears by providing a visible sign that police were taking their concerns seriously.
The latest Met figures show that the number of gun crimes in September rose from 230 last year to 300 this year.
Over the last six months gun crime has risen by 17 per cent on last year, with 1,736 gun crimes reported in London between April and September this year — 252 more than the same period last year.
This month it was revealed that the number of “war wound” attacks — in which gang members shoot each other in the legs for “disrespect” — have more than doubled to 72 this year compared with the whole of last year.
Chief Inspector Neil Sharman, of SO19, said that the new patrols would be a significant change in tactics: “We have traditionally provided a response to gun crime. This new unit sees a move towards a more proactive approach to deal with weapons.”
Although armed Met officers can often be seen on the streets, they have previously been restricted to guarding sites and individuals deemed at risk.
Reader views (54)
No surprise here! Fifteen years ago I visited my childrens infant school and saw the pupils latest Art project adorning the walls. "A Policeman in the Year 2015" . What struck me was that every Policeman was carrying a GUN of one sort, or another...... ("Out of the mouths of babes...")
- Frank, Bristol UK
About time, we are way to soft over here. Everyone wants everyone else to be policed but not themselves!!!! Cops should of been armed years ago.Stop giving out the cuddles and start giving out real policing.
- Barry Reynolds, London
Peckham's got a bad reputation, but I lived there for a year and found a lot of decent people doing their best. I can't imagine armed police marching around would be that great to be honest. It seems like a slippery slope to me.
- James, Tokyo, Japan
What on earth have they been waiting for??
- Nick, Miami, FL
Police , either SO19 or SO16 DO NOT carry machine guns !!
The H+K is a carbine which can only be fired SINGLE shot .
The ones in police use are fitted with a selector lever which prevents it being fired other than single shot .
Handguns ?-The H+K is far more accurate and in fact uses exactly the same 9mm round as the Glock .(not a .45 then ! )
It used to be that officers were issued with two magazines - one of twelve rounds (in the weapon ) and one of twenty four rounds . --So the image of police spraying the streets is WRONG .
Looking like the military ? --besides the addition of a ballistic vest these officers are dressed exactly as they would be normally dressed whilst on patrol .
As for seven bullets in the head - this was a method SOLELY for immediately neutralising a potential bomber so he couldn't switch the switch or pull the pin on a explosive device .
Gripe about the subject , but lets be accurate !!!!
- Nigel, France
As usual all the sensitive lefties are against this move however, if nulabour hadnt saddled the met with all that paper work then maybe we wouldnt have reached this situation. Just hope the armed police have a shoot to kill policy regardless of age or colour. You live by the sword you die by it... make my day punk!
- Jamie Johnson, Luton, Herts
Why are these armed police not coming to Kensington or Chelsea, we pay our taxes too.
- Mr S.Port, London
The only rightful place for this sort of firepower is in our army. We should disarm the police.
It`s our liberty and lives at stake.
- Clive Allen, Brighton, UK
I note the rusted barrel which really says so much ; words like careless , lazy , untrained , unsupervised ,undisiplined , weapons ignorance etc.No wonder they shoot the innocent and each other ! From a 65 year old former shooter and soldier who has NEVER seen a rusted barrel on a weapon before.Given the dangerous implications , at the very least he should not be allowed anywhere near guns.Or sacked.
- Chris M, morbihan,france;
Yeah, armed Police on the streets of London. What's new? By the content of this youtube video the met have already been messing about on the streets with guns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbks-FvSFVs
Make sure you watch the bit where he shoots the screaming blonde guy. But the question you have to ask is, can you trust them with guns, when there are idiots like this in their ranks?
- Mark Andrews, London
The end of England, as I know it.
- George Rossier, Torquay UK
The entirely predictable doom and gloom predictions not withstanding, shouldn't it be remembered, just in passing, that the armed police are a RESPONSE to the increasingly violent, GROWING numbers of armed street thugs who appear to believe you have to step off the pavement and bow your heads in humility as a sign of due 'respect', who care nothing about the local civilians who can get between them and their targets.... the list is almost endless, as are the examples.
By all means worry that there will be due control and professionalism, as is right and proper, but don't expect unarmed men and women to go up against even teens that are armed to the teeth just so you can feel better about the arms issue.
Oh, and that guy who thinks all Americans are armed and itching to use 'em? TV and film drama, your undoubted 'source' - "dramatize". Get it? The reality is that to have a concealed weapon licence - an absolute requirement even in pro-carry states (yes, there's some states against it too!) - weapon carriers have to be vetted and be proficient in weapon handling. They are also trained to understand that THEY are responsible for where their bullets go, even accidentally. In short, they are required to be RESPONSIBLE, law abiding people. The rabidly anti-gun crowd have difficulty even with their usual selectively re-worked statistics to refute this.
This is water off a duck's back to some, I know, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.
- Rogan, Irving
The police state is here everyone. Very sad really.
- Will, mayfair
And about time too. For too ling our police have had no means of hitting back at he gun thugs and now they will have a degree of protection . The Americans dont see the harm in being armed to protect their citizens and themselves.
- Thomas Hayes, Leeds UK
I can understand why having armed Police patrols by specialist units might be seen as a counter to gun crime, but previous "good ideas", such as banning hanguns, have led to an increase in gun-carrying and I cannot help feeling that the authorities are getting it wrong in issuing submachine guns capable of firing 800 rounds a minute. Such rapid fire weapons do not seem to me to be suitable for an urban environment. And just how many innocents do we want to see killed or injured in any one incident? The capital's police do not have an unblemished record.
- James Elliott, Eastbourne UK
Just waiting for the flood of uninformed comments from people about this. This is a positive step - giving police the resource and tools to go out and prevent gun crime and gang crime in the first place. How can this be anything other than a positive move? On the subject of "trigger happy" - CO19 end up shooting people in only a tiny tiny percentage of their calls throughout a normal year, and in those cases some of the shootings are with non lethal options such as Taser, only an even tinier percentage result in deaths. This is an excellent record and far from being "trigger happy" as some have claimed.
- H Morgan, London
"I've lived in Joburg, where the police (and plenty of other people!) are armed, and I felt safer there than I do in London. The reality is, once you have guns on the streets you are stuck with them - the big mistake was to get sloppy and let things get this bad in the first place.
- Roz, France"
It must have been a long time ago that you lived in Joburg, possibly under the apartheid era, or you didn't live there long enough.
Joburg is a warzone. I have felt safer in some warzones than in Joburg. If you want to commit suicide and still ensure your family get your life assurance, just walk around any Joburg street, particularly downtown, chatting into your mobile phone and refuse to hand it over to the first gentleman who requests it.
SA has the second highest murder rate in the world, topped only by drug-industry Colombia, and has the highest rape rate in the world.
Safer than London?
Dream on.
- David Short, Tunis, Tunisia
Another nulabour landmark; I don't even recognise the country I grew up in any more.
- Jules_London, london
That is terrible news. On one of my trips to LA some 10 bystanders were killed by police returning fire on armed robbers in a week. Remember the poor man shout dead on the Underground here and the one shot dead because he was carrying a pick axe handle mistaken for a gun. Keep us all posted daily on the internet of the areas, cities, towns and villages where the police will be armed on the streets so we can all steer well clear of them.
- Albert Hall, hove england
The police record under arms is not an impressive one. They kill more innocent people than criminals. And that was when they sniper rifles with 'scopes. What mayhem they will they generate with machine pistols I shudder to think.
From the brawny tatooed macho,waiting to get at 'em to the patina of rust on the barrel I fear the worst.
We need more police patrols on the streets, not weapons of crude and devastating violence. Crude because hand guns are notoriously inaccurate and the violence of a machine pistol is not something to unleashed on a street, not even in Haringey.
What is Nulabors new initiative, 'if you can't beat them, shoot them ?'
- James Edwards, Dineault, France.
Woe betide the innocent table leg carrying citizen. They'll be gunned down by the dozen now!
Are you sure these things are really sub-machine guns? I thought the variant the police used were semi-automatic carbines, limited to a single shot per trigger pull.
- Toby Webster, Ongar
Well, I hope they're going to shoot first and ask questions later.
Let's have a few trigger happy morons firing away at mums with strollers because the 'professionally trained' officer thought the feeding bottle was a molotov cocktail.
NooLabour seems to feel they can do anything because every one of these new 'laws' won't be repealed by the Conservatives when they get a landslide majority next year.
Gordon knows the race is lost and like George W, is trying to poison the atmosphere for the Tories.
I'm voting Liberal!
- Victhebrit, Nara, Japan
Yay! Now we can look forward to even MORE mindless "Police, Action, Camera" footage, but this time, sarf Lunnun action with guns all the way!
- Michael Fishberg, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
"It has been the lack of the traditional foot patrols which has allowed gangs the power to take over housing estates and now the streets."
Spot on, Anna. Nothing mysterious about that. Except to the people who "rule" us.
"If that gun with its rusty barrel is anything to go by, we are in for a rough time!"
Well spotted, Zznhl.
- Robert Zimmerman, London
If the out of touch judges had applied the minimum 5 year gaol sentences for all illegal gun carriers we may not have come to this. So now instead of punishment being handed down by the courts it will be given out in gun battles on the street. With the innocent inevitably being caught in the crossfire.
- Mick, London, England
"This is not America, where every citizen has the right to carry arms ... [w]e only have to look to USA to see the issues they have there, with Police being killed and their weapons stolen, falling in to the wrong hands."
It is rare to find a place where US private citizens are actually permitted to carry a weapon in public. Maybe you are thinking of the right to keep a (licensed) gun for protection in one's home but that is not a right to carry a gun in public. It's also relatively rare for an officer to be killed in the line of duty, though it does unfortunateley happen and one death is too many from my standpoint. But I assume that would happen more frequently if they were not armed and happens less because they carry weaponry; at least, that seems logical. And I have never heard of a problem of officers' guns being stolen to be used in criminal enterprise. Not sure what you have been reading but it sounds like whatever it was was misleading. I know if an issue arises in a street somewhere I would like armed officers responding, and would prefer not to wait "5-10 minutes" for the protection, as alot of damage can happen at the hands of a criminal in the course of ten minutes.
- Rich, New York City, New York
I notice your report says that armed police will patrol the streets of Brixton, Haringey and Tottenham. They should add Peckham to that list - this afternoon if possible, although they'll have their work cut out.
- Josie Tapper, Peckham, London, UK
Sad reflection on society but more should be done to stop adolescents feeling the need to join gangs in first place. If families had fathers it would help. We need to stop the gratuitous sex culture amongst certain ethnic majorities (I use majority intentionally)
- Ray Hassall, London UK
Oh, yeah! Armed police to go on British streets in a bid to fight gun gangs? Or in a bid to control the decent civilised population who, if they try to peacefully demonstrate against the totalitarian state that has been imposed, can be shot down or better still be too terrified to come out on the streets? Which do you think is more likely? This government is full of venomous nutters. Insane!Evil! It is frightening!
- Judith C, London, England
Although it has become inevitable, I still think that this is the wrong approach. How long will it be before there's a shoot out in the street where innocent people will get hurt,maybe killed?.
- Concerned, london
The police should have been openly armed, as is the case in most European countries I believe(?) years ago, for foot patrols in high crime areas, although there is always the worry that innocent by-standers may get hurt/killed or innocents shot in tragic cases of mistaken identity. Armed police are a sad reflection of the times we now live in.
- Jon Kent, Hertford. UK
Well about time! Welcome to NU Labours Britain, a place of high crime and poverty sporned by years of uncontrolled mass immigration into the UK and its major cities.
- Dirk Diggler, Soho, London
About bloody time!
- Josh, London
this is a terrible idea. the only thing more dangerous and intimidating than a teenager with a handgun is a member of the metropolitan police with a sub-machine gun. armed response to shooting incidents is fine, but police patrolling streets dressed like the military just makes us all feel we're in a war zone, and act accordingly.
- Fred, brixton
Banning the private ownership of handguns has really worked, hasn't it?
- Mdj E10, london uk
Good and about time.
- Philip, London, England
If that gun with its rusty barrel is anything to go by, we are in for a rough time!
- Zznhl, London
Great. More innocent Brazilians shot in the head seven times by these heavily tattooed macho storm troopers.
- Thomas, London
It has been the lack of the traditional foot patrols which has allowed gangs the power to take over housing estates and now the streets.
- Anna, London
A very sensible move. I have lived in London and New York and found the NYPD far less threatening than the Met because I always felt the Met overcompensated for not being armed by being overly aggressive (I don't blame them for this, by the way). I have also witnessed enough NYC arrests (police point gun at man who behaves himself) to know they are preferable to several London arrests I have witnessed (five-six coppers wrestling a man to the ground and kneeling on him while he struggles for breadth and shouts abuse). While we are about it, why not go the whole hog (geddit) and give all patrolling cops handguns?
- Milton-Not-Keynes, London
This is starting to get worrying. At least the armed officers will be from SO19 squad, and therefore properly trained. However, rather like the CCTV Cameras supposedly preventing crime and becomming more frequent in their use, and yet no do either; I am not happy about EVERY Police Officer carrying a Firearm.
This is not America, where every citizen has the right to carry arms, and I certainly would not want to walk down my high street seeing every officer with a Kotch .45 strapped to his shoulder.
SO16 have a good reputation for being safe, and they can be called up at a moments notice by squad cars by radio, and usually on the scene in 5-10 minuets. To have ALL outr Police permanently armed is going to cause more problems than it solves. We only have to look to USA to see the issues they have there, with Police being killed and their weapons stolen, falling in to the wrong hands.
This is getting all out of hand and together with invasive CCTV, I am not sure whether as a law abiding citizen want to stay in this Country any more.
- Chris Richards, Chelmsford Essex
About time too. I hope the police use a shoot to kill policy against any of the gangsta's who carry weapons.
- Peter, Harrow, UK
It's all rather inevitable. I'd like to know what their rules of engagement are though. Can they shoot if a suspect is armed, or do they have to wait until somebody or they themselves are in mortal danger? Can already envisage the first enquiry into a shooting; racist gun cops! Trigger happy plod! etc.....
- Mark, London
About time too how else can the Police combat armed thugs?
- El Del, Valencia Spain
The Start of the Police State has begun.
Trade in fear, helps the repression by Governments.
Who are they really protecting, you or themselves?
- Mickinlondon, london
I've lived in Joburg, where the police (and plenty of other people!) are armed, and I felt safer there than I do in London. The reality is, once you have guns on the streets you are stuck with them - the big mistake was to get sloppy and let things get this bad in the first place.
- Roz, France
It could only happen under labour. Can you really see the tories getting away with it?
- Steve, Brentford
What took the police so long?
With the current deterioration in the quality of life in Third World banana republic Police State bankrupt UK, it will not be long before armed police are standing outside your front door and you will need written permission to leave or enter your own home.
- Reuben Camara, Morecambe Compound, EUSSR
"Mr Carroll said that one of the key aims would be to ease residents' fears by providing a visible sign that police were taking their concerns seriously"
If they were serious about this issue, they would be arresting more people, and lobbying Parliament for very, very long sentence
Why are machine guns needed, handguns would be more than adequate, and less visible.
A very sad day for the British public when we need to have police walking around with machine guns.
- P Staker, London
About time.
- Frederick, London
What is London becoming, more and more like Joburg, or LA. I live in Islington and the last year, I constantly here the police helicopters, and now this.
- Mike, London
How about unarmed police going on regular patrols? That would make a change.
- Nolan, Londonist
About time the police had the correct equipment to take on the steet gangs most of whom are already carrying weapons. Several times in recent days unarmed police have been threatened/shot at without the means to protect/fight back. If they (the street criminals) want to act like 'American Gangsters' then all of the police forces must be allowed to at least be as prepared as their American counterparts. Stuff the IPCC they are not out on the streets trying to keep law and order they merely protect the criminals by placing and difficult and impossible constraints on the police and pay scant regard to safety of the law abiding citizens. David please promise to get rid of the IPCC and their fellow travellers !!! big vote winner.
- Nick Holland, glasgow
Great news, let's stamp out this ruinous 'gang culture'.
- Paul, Bromley
